Illustrated Cups

I was doing a lot of designs for paper printed products and for a long time I was visualising my illustrations on other surfaces. Because most of my products were seasonal and often Christmas related, I wanted to create something that would make a great gift for all occasions all year round. Cups seamed like an optimal solution.

At that time I was concentration mainly on London areas in my art and was positioning myself as architectural and botanical illustrator. It was natural for me to place my London illustrations on the cups - I had just finished new London in Bloom collection of paintings, put them together in a next year’s calendar as I was always doing once I’ve got enough drawings and thought it would be nice to have matching cups, maybe united by some kind of story. I picked my favourite locations: Covent Garden, Kew Garden, Notting Hill, Royal Albert Hall, Tower Bridge and Saint Paul’s Cathedral and started planning potential design, researching the producers and writing enquires.

I did rough mock ups with the photos of cups I’ve found online - that helped me to figure out what I wanted regarding shape and details. I realised that I needed a sophisticated shape, fine porcelain and a pretty handle preferable with a drop of gold. Here are more ‘sketches’:

I’ve spent hours looking for the right manufacturer and one day found the mug that I liked on Instagram. There was some logo or writing on the bottom of the cup that I couldn’t quite see - it became all pixelated once I zoomed in. So I started to google what could have that be, trying different combinations of words - and found it! We had a call and couple of months later I took a train to Stoke On Trent. I was shown the production (both cups are made on the UK and the print transfer is happening in the UK in the neighbouring warehouse) and picked a shape that it liked - it is called Beaker and I fount it unusual and pretty. There is a mock up and a real cup of the same Notting Hill design.

The production was supposed to last 6 weeks, but the country got hit by the first wave of Covid, the company was operation on a skeleton stuff and I’ve got my cups 6 months after it was initially planned.

The Saint Paul’s Cup happened to be my best seller and none was left pretty soon. Soon other’s got sold out. At the moment I have three Covent Garden and two Notting Hill mugs left - at least there are at the time that I am writing this post!

Covent Carden Fine Bone China Mug